The body of double child-murderer Ian Huntley, who died several weeks ago after being attacked by another inmate in prison, remains unclaimed in the hospital morgue with none of his family wanting anything to do with any funeral arrangements.

Under prison regulations, normally a prisoner will be buried or cremated in location of their address prior to their imprisonment, but in this case the citizens of Soham – the small Cambridgeshire town where Huntley committed his shocking crimes – have made it clear that will not be allowed to happen with the backing of local authorities, who feared a riot were he to return.

Huntley died when doctors turned off his life-support following almost a week in intensive care. That was after he was ambushed and struck with a makeshift weapon inflicting significant head trauma on the 52-year-old leaving him blind and apparently unrecognisable. 

With nobody prepared to take responsibility for his body which essentially has been “left to rot” it is now left up to prison bosses to make the final decision on what finally happens.

Most notorious at “Monster Mansion”

Even within a prison which has been dubbed “Monster Mansion” due to the shocking crimes committed by its inmates, Huntley was the most notorious and always a target for attempts on his life. He was seemingly “jumped” from behind and had his head virtually “split in two” in a workshop at HMP Frankland, with several blows from a metal bar. 

Triple killer and rapist Anthony Russell, 43, is suspected of carrying out the brutal attack. It left Huntley in a critical condition, dependent on life support machines and ventilators to keep him alive.

Prison will have to take responsibility

Guidelines from the Ministry of Justice state that prisons must offer to pay a contribution towards reasonable funeral expenses of up to £3,000, so with nobody willing to come forward, it would appear that they will have to take responsibility.

This will probably mean a cremation out of hours, with his ashes disposed of anonymously in an unpublicised location to avoid public attention. 

Shocking crime

On 4 August, 2002, in a crime which shook the nation, Huntley lured two 10-year-old girls – Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman – into his home claiming that his girlfriend, Maxine Carr – who was the girls teaching assistant at school – was inside and wanted to see them. 

He proceeded to murder them both, most likely by asphyxiation, and then disposed of their bodies in an irrigation ditch some 10 miles away. The tight-knit community of Soham launched an intense 13-day search for the “missing” girls, which included Huntley speaking to the media on several occasions, feigning concern and appealing for their safe return. 

Life sentence

After the gruesome discovery of the girls bodies, suspicion eventually fell on Huntley who was arrested and convicted, receiving a life-sentence in what the Ministry of Justice called “one of the most shocking and devastating cases in our nation’s history.”

Maxine Carr was handed a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence for conspiring with Huntley to pervert the course of justice by knowingly providing the evil killer with a false alibi.